Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Rich Peasants

In the first Marxist revolutions, the agitators railed against a group called the bourgeoisie (the middle class). Today, the left claims to love the middle class. People are flocking to the Democratic party for "protection of the middle class."

So, what happened?

The big difference is that the hated bourgeoisie of the past owned the means of production. These people generally saved alot and built equity. The hated bourgeoisie would save and pay for their health care, education and retirement

The American middle class is a totally different beast.

The American middle class is a group of people who are deeply in debt and are dependent on their employer for their fixed incomes. They are dependent on the government for education, and for the bulk of their retirement. Some depend on the largess of their employer for health care, the reat depend on government.

The American middle class is now little more than rich peasants.

Anyway, what has me most upset with the Republicans is that they failed to turn the tide on the political process that reduced our nation into peasantry. Rather than rebuilding a real middle class that owned production, they tried playing the game of compassionate, bipartisan conservatives. The result is that they let the financial system be captured by rogues. The mortgages system to be come corrupt by government backed re-insurance schemes.

There is nothing in Obama's slate of goods that will restore ownership of production to the middle class. We might have the illusion of wealth created by debt financed tax cuts on taxes never paid, but nothing that actually increases the wealth of the people.

Unfortunately, no matter how one goes about it, a people can't remain rich peasants for long.

2 comments:

Bush talked a lot for a while about creating an "ownership society," but he didn't do much about it other than try a minor restructuring of Social Security. The ownership society rhetoric died quite a while ago, as the GOP's prospects for maintaining ownership of the government went down the tubes.